Netgear Tries Pushing Into Enterprise WLAN Space

Netgear, best known for its Wi-Fi equipment aimed at homes and small businesses, said Monday that it will partner with two other WLAN vendors in an attempt to get a foot in the enterprise door.

In a joint announcement, Netgear, Bluesocket and Propagate Networks predicted that their alliance will save enterprises between 50 and 70 percent in WLAN capital expenditure costs.

"We intend to deliver a total cost of ownership never before seen in the market," Paul, Callahan, Propagate's co-founder and vice president said in a statement.

The companies gave few details about the partnership other than to say they would "deliver and promote an enterprise-class solution for wireless LANs." They also said that their efforts would fuse Netgear's new ProSafe line of enterprise-level access points with security and management services provided by Bluesocket's wireless gateways and Propagate's AutoCell application programming interface (API).

Netgear is trying to break into a market that, according to virtually all industry analysis, is dominated by Cisco Systems.